1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image interpretation report creating apparatus to be used for creating image interpretation reports and an image interpretation support system for supporting image interpretation performed by doctors after imaging of examination images (medical images) used for medical diagnoses.
2. Description of a Related Art
Recent years, along with the spread of medical digital image generation technologies such as CR (computed radiography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography), medical images obtained by examinations have been electronically managed.
Generally, when an imaging examination is performed, interpretation is performed on generated images by an image interpretation doctor to create an image interpretation report, in which an interpretation result and observations are written, before a specific diagnosis is made to a patient by a doctor in charge. Conventionally, even when digital image data is generated, medical images printed on photographic films are used at the time of image interpretation. On the other hand, medical images displayed on monitors are also used for image interpretation with the development of high-definition monitors (viewers).
By the way, when a follow-up observation of a lesion part is performed, it is necessary for the image interpretation doctor to observe images representing the same part as that in the past examination. Accordingly, it is desirable that whether or not the same examination as this examination has been made can be determined on the stored past examination images, or that the past examination images can be easily searched.
As a related technology, Japanese Patent Application Publication JP-P2002-342485A discloses an image interpretation support system in which image interpretation reports are created or referred by using an image interpretation report terminal while medical images are displayed on an image display terminal. The image interpretation support system includes means for determining report information that matches a predetermined condition from an image interpretation report database at regular time intervals or according to a user's instructions, means for determining image information corresponding to the report information of the determination result from an image database, means for merging report information and image information with respect to each examination to make and display a list of examinations on which the image information has been obtained, means to be used by the user for selecting one examination from the displayed list of the examinations and giving instructions to display the examination, means for transmitting report display instructions to an image interpretation report terminal in accordance with image interpretation report identification of the selected examination, means for displaying an image interpretation report corresponding to the image interpretation report identification in the image interpretation report terminal that has received the report display instructions, means for transmitting image display instructions to an image display terminal in accordance with image identification of the selected examination, and means for displaying images corresponding to the image identification in the image display terminal that has received the image display instructions.
When an examination by CT or MRI is made, on the order of thousands (e.g., about 1500 to 2000) of slice images are generated for one examination. Accordingly, the image interpretation doctor must retrieve images at the same slice position as or a near slice position to the slice position of the image interpreted in the past examination from a vast amount of images. On this point, according to JP-P2002-342485A, the past image interpretation report and examination image on the same examination made for the same patient as the patient of this examination can be retrieved, however, only the image at the head of a series of slice images can be displayed. Therefore, the image interpretation doctor must view the images of one series sequentially from the head thereof for retrieving a desired slice image, which imposes a heavy burden on the doctor.